My passions for creating and social justice all come together here.

May 18, 2011

The Mysterious Muse - And Why She's Not as Important as She Thinks She Is

Have you ever stopped to imagine what your muse looks like? I have. She's more beautiful than I could ever dream of being, a couple of inches taller than I am, slender but curvy in all the right places. She has long blonde hair that she wears unstyled so that it hangs loose and tangles around her face and shoulders.

Her eyes can be either child-like with wonder or wise with the heaviness of cynicism, and they change color depending on her moods. When she has a story to spin, her eyes become a dark, stormy blue and her usually thin voice could be heard over the roaring of the seas and the shifting of mountains. When she smiles or teases--as she does often--her eyes become a light, guileless violet.

My muse's sharp little teeth are straight and white. She's been known to nip on occasion. She usually goes barefoot in long, flowing skirts and peasant blouses.

My muse loves animals and magical creatures, and every so often, a fairy flits around her head whispering secrets, or a unicorn comes to rest its weary head on her lap, even though she is anything but a virgin. Because she is my muse, she is always surrounded by cats.

My muse is not in the least domesticated. She's the sort that ancient authorities probably would have burned as a witch...assuming they could have caught her, which is assuming quite a lot. I've learned from long, bruising experience what, when my muse vanishes, she cannot be found by a mere mortal like me. She reappears when she's good and ready, when she's over whatever snit might have sent her away or when she's found a new story that's simply too good not to tell.

And heaven help me if she comes at an inconvenient moment and I'm not immediately ready for her. Her eyes flash black with irritation, and she disappears again with a snap of her long fingers. She may forgive me in a matter of hours (if she has an especially juicy tale to share) or it could take weeks before she comes on the scene again, full of some new scheme or plot to pique my interest.

The Writer

I've learned not to rely on my muse to sustain my writing career. My clients and editors need materials on a schedule that may have nothing to do with my muse's comings and goings. There is another part of my psyche, the writer, who is disciplined and dependent with everyday tasks. She does the boring research, produces materials to specification, and, at times, has been known to put a leash on the muse's wilder ideas.

I lean on the writer for my long-term success. She handles the marketing, the finances, the query letters, and the email inquiries. While my muse is always present to cheer and dance over my successes, my writer has quietly seen me through my failures. No matter how crushed I may be feeling, she's always at the desk the next day, ready to work.

The writer is not as wild, or beautiful, or dangerous as my muse, but she can always be relied upon. She is, if you will, my partner, while my muse is like an old college friend who dashes in to town from who-knows-where, grabs my hand, and drags me out for a crazy night on the city. Her mind jumps wildly from one idea to another, and she whispers them all in my ear in a brilliant collision of sanity and lunacy.

The next day, after my muse has vanished, the writer sighs and patiently sorts through all the ideas. She turns the best ones into well-crafted stories and articles. The rest blow away like dandelion seeds on the wind. Perhaps they fly into the mind of some other writer's muse who knows just what to do with them.

Do I need my muse? No, as long as I have my writer, my career will progress just fine. But I have to admit having an on-again, off-again muse keeps my writing life interesting. And if you've ever read any of my work and noticed a sentence, or a paragraph, or even a full chapter where solid copywriting gave way to a flash of something almost like genius, you'll understand why I like my muse so much...even though she can be a colossal pain in the ass.

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Current/Recent Reads

Hilary Mantel: Wolf HallAn amazing tale of Tudor England. I would give this book more than five stars if I could. (*****)

Nancy Rae: A MATTER OF TIMEI REALLY wanted to like this book, but in the end it just didn't work for me. The main character remains a victim of fate from start to finish - I never had the sense that he was taking control of his own destiny. (**)